Team Xerra

Kelsi has a background in strategic communications and brand management. She is passionate about genuine stakeholder engagement, organisational development and creating space for two-way communication.

Her past roles have given her a foray into land conservation at one of the United States’s first conservation organisations (est 1901), high-performance networking (serving the specific needs of New Zealand’s research, innovation and education communities), the world of TEDx and ‘ideas worth spreading’, and developing online communities for emergency response and recovery in the humanitarian sector.

She sits on the Board of Directors for the Wellington Branch of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and is the Event Director for ActInSpace NZ, an event that supports young Kiwis to re-imagine existing space technology and find new applications for space-based data.

Kelsi lives with her husband and their toddler in Wellington.

Sophie has recently completed her second year of studying towards a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Victoria University of Wellington. Majoring in Marketing and minoring in Psychology, she is interested in how theories in social psychology can be applied to influence consumer’s habits and behaviours, and how these theories may differ between contrasting international markets. Sophie enjoys learning about the components of human relations within business and how organisations can build a high level of trust with their customers.

Sophie has previous work experience as an intern with New Zealand King Salmon, where she developed a good base set of skills within finance, HR and marketing. Sophie will be with Xerra over the summer of 2020-2021, to assist them with their efforts in market research. With both parents working in fishing and aquaculture, and spending her childhood on the ocean, she is excited to be contributing towards work that enables her to ‘give back’ to the fishing and maritime industries that have allowed her so many great experiences and the opportunity to grow up safely on the water in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Originally from Nelson, she now lives and studies in Wellington City, and is often at the gym, cooking, playing football or catching up with friends in her spare time.

Andrew has a background in earth observation and remote sensing using high-frequency ocean radar. He completed a PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University of Sheffield in the UK where he developed signal processing algorithms to extract metocean parameters from radar systems. He subsequently joined Seaview Sensing Ltd, a Sheffield-based software company created to commercialise the wave inversion techniques that had been developed at the university, and worked for the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System. He has been involved in a variety of roles within oceanographic radar, including science research, signal processing and software development, working from the UK, New Zealand, Australia and Thailand.

Andrew relocated back home to New Zealand in 2018 and currently works remotely from Queenstown, within easy access to the Southern Alps for snowboarding and cycling.

Dave was introduced to satellite imaging at the University of Otago and has spent the last decade honing his skills in anticipation of returning to help advance earth observation science in New Zealand.

Previously, Dave was a research scientist with the Geographic Information Science and Technology Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), America’s largest multi-program science and technology laboratory and home of the world’s fastest supercomputer. Working at the interface between raw satellite imagery and application-oriented end-users, Dave knows how to translate large volumes of complex data into actionable information at scale. In support of government and humanitarian agencies, he designed and led an innovative, state-of-the-art capability to reconstruct the topography of the Earth’s surface from multiple-view satellite imagery, using techniques similar to stereo vision. The resulting high-resolution elevation data are critical to applications ranging from emergency response to freshwater quality and critical infrastructure.

Dave received the PhD degree in Imaging Science from Rochester Institute of Technology, earning the Doctoral Dissertation of the Year award for his environmental monitoring research with NASA. His work has been featured in magazines such as National Geographic and The Smithsonian.

Duncan studied at the universities of London, Colorado and Canterbury, taking his PhD in physics at the latter. Since then he has been involved in space projects in the US, UK, Australia, Sweden and Canada, publishing over 140 refereed papers. His research has covered satellite remote sensing, orbital dynamics (of asteroids, comets, and space junk), radar studies of meteors, deep space mission design, and astrobiology. His systems engineering work has involved technological innovations in both the civil and military domains.

Active in public outreach, Duncan is the author of four books, and more than a thousand articles in newspapers and magazines published around the globe. He has also appeared in many TV documentaries, and radio interviews.

Minor planet 4713 Steel is named for him, as is a lunar-roving robot in one of Arthur C.Clarke’s novels.

Joseph has spent a large portion of his time since 2008 working on turning satellite measurements into useful data products. After completing a Jet Propulsion Laboratory funded MSc in Physics at the University of Auckland, he moved to the United States where he spent seven years working at the NASA Langley Research Center.

While at NASA Joseph was part of a team developing algorithms for NASA Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System, helping to continue more than 30 years of Earth Radiation Budget measurements and producing data products used by researchers studying the Earth’s climate. His work at NASA included all aspects of satellite data processing, from the calibration of instruments, development of retrieval algorithms, validation of data products, and fusion of multiple data sources. It even involved a month of flying in C-130 over the Arctic Ocean. More recently, after returning to New Zealand, he worked as a Data Scientist at an electricity retailer, using machine learning and other techniques to extract information from data.

Moritz’s work focuses remote sensing and modelling technologies to address water quality issues in lakes and the coastal ocean. He has a PhD in oceanography from Dalhousie University, Canada, and has worked in both research and consulting until he relocated with his family to New Zealand in 2014.

As a senior research fellow at the University of Waikato, Moritz developed new methods for satellite-based monitoring of lake water quality and applied these to over 1400 New Zealand lakes. He has been with Xerra since September 2018 where his work includes operationalisation of satellite data products for the monitoring of aquatic environments and fundamental research on hard questions such as atmospheric correction.

Moritz lives in Raglan where he enjoys New Zealand’s perennial summer (compared with Canadian climes) practicing horsemanship and longboard surfing.

Robert has focused his career on Earth Science and remote sensing in both academic and commercial settings. He received his PhD in Physical Science from the University of Technology Sydney, after which he joined the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in Boulder, Colorado. His research at CIRES focused on radar remote sensing of winds, turbulence, and rainfall.

To follow his interest in applying algorithms beyond the academic arena, he undertook a position at OmniVision/CDM optics, where he led the research group developing computational imaging systems for cell phones, and represented the company in the International Imaging Industry Association. He then joined Harris Corporation, where he identified and developed innovative algorithms for calibrating and analysing satellite and airborne imagery. Here his passion for spatiotemporal analysis brought new capabilities for analysing landcover changes. His interest in precision agriculture led him to AGERpoint, where he developed LiDAR algorithms to analyse crop health, structure, and yield.

Robert has worked extensively with many remote sensing modalities and has a thorough understanding of their application, calibration, and phenomenology. His passion lies in translating remote sensing observations of the environment into actionable information.

James has spent his career crafting beautiful and valuable web experiences across a range of different industries, from small-scale boutique businesses to global software platforms. He has led the front-end strategic direction for SaaS companies and particularly enjoys the creativity and excitement that comes as part of developing new products and services.

His past experience has seen him work across a myriad of different sides of the web, from building applications that run entirely in the browser through to writing scalable web APIs and architecting server infrastructure.

James likes to keep up to date with the latest developments and fast paced changes that are now synonymous with the web’s front-end ecosystem. He’s always had a fascination with new technology and is now enjoying working on the cutting edge at Xerra.

James spent several years living and working in Canada but has always felt a strong connection to New Zealand where he now lives back in his home town of Wellington.

Julie likes to get stuck into problem solving to make products and services work better for people. She’s passionate about uncovering real world problems, and she’s equally interested in making the problem solving process more inclusive, so that everyone can rally behind a shift towards positive outcomes for the people and our planet.

As a design practitioner, Julie has worked across Xero and Trade Me in their respective design teams to help shape and improve their product experience, as well as the design and product development processes. Prior to joining Xerra, she has been working with government agencies through Fjord/Accenture to help stand up new systems or improve existing services for everyone. She has led projects, teams, and had the pleasure of mentoring other designers along the way.

Julie lives in Wellington with her husband and cat. In her spare time, she sends snail mail to her pen pals, fusses over her indoor plants, and writes in her journal.

Justin’s career has taken him from civil engineering roles in NZ, Saudi Arabia and Australia, through to his current interest in software engineering. He has spent the past 25 years leading the development of software for statistical financial analysis at Moody’s, developing internet banking at the Royal Bank of Scotland, developing financial trading tools at Credit Suisse in Zurich and learning the black art of high frequency trading at Actant in Switzerland.

Justin has had forays in music score editing and image editing, and has a keen interest hillwalking, hiking and motorcycling. Justin and his wife live and work in Alexandra, where they own a property that is hiding beneath a covering of scrub, which they are slowly clearing to reveal rugged outcrops of Central Otago schist.

Laszlo is a software developer and problem solver, who's been writing computer programs since he was a kid. Now, with more than 20 years of professional experience in software engineering, he's passionate about creating technology that's good for the planet and finding elegant, innovative solutions for his customers.

Before joining Xerra, Laszlo worked remotely as Principal Software Engineer at Oracle and Staff Engineer at Sun Microsystems. At Xerra, he builds and maintains the technology that powers our data analytics and machine learning that make up our products and services. Laszlo closely collaborates with our researchers and business stakeholders to understand their particular needs, then translates those into technical requirements to come up with the most effective and efficient solutions for architecting our technology.

Originally from Hungary, Laszlo lived in various places around the globe before settling in Dunedin, where he's lived for more than a decade. He's very active in the community, along with his family. On a nice day you might find him kayaking or sailing in the beautiful Otago harbour!

Simeon has a background in software, computer systems, and research networks. He joined Xerra in August 2018 as a Senior Software Engineer. He works remotely from Auckland where he lives with his wife and two dogs.

Prior to moving to New Zealand, Simeon worked in the IT division at Berkeley Lab in California, USA. His earlier career in South Africa started at universities in Pretoria and Cape Town, after which he joined the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) where he developed remote sensing software. He later led the engineering team at the CSIR that built the South African Research Network (SANReN).

Simeon enjoys working with technology that helps researchers turn their ideas into products and services that benefit society.